


Christmas in Oxford

by TheMadThing



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gen, Presents, happiness, morse has fun, think i might have a cavity after writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadThing/pseuds/TheMadThing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas in Oxford

Christmas  
December 23rd

 

Thursday was checking that the office was clear before locking up, hopefully until after Boxing Day. He was surprised, however, when he didn’t see Morse, working away at the back. Morse was often the last to leave for the holidays, and regularly had to be forced to leave. Apparently not this time though. He smiled to himself, pleased that Morse now had something that made him want to go home, probably the girl he’d seen him around with. He left the office, still smiling, and went home.

December 24th

The call came through at 10 o’clock in the morning, a body found next to Folly Bridge. When Morse and Thursday arrived, the uniforms were looking for one of the hands.  
“Anything else missing?” Thursday asked them when they told him.  
“No sir,” replied Strange, “Not sure if it is suspicious or not though, the hand could have been eaten by a fox or something, DeBryn’s taking a look now,” Morse followed Thursday down to the water’s edge where the body was lying, taking care not to look to closely at the stump of the arm. It was an old man, probably around his seventies, very dirty, and thin.  
“Got anything?” he asked DeBryn.  
“Death appears to be from natural causes, a post mortem will make sure of that, but it looks like he’s been sleeping rough for a while now, so probably just cold, or starvation. Could be either at this stage.”  
“Morse, Jakes, I want you to see if you can find anyone who might know who he is, or who might have killed him, if it is murder. I suggest asking the local homeless population, if you can get them to talk to you.” Both Morse and Jakes jumped at the sound of Bright’s voice and Jakes nearly fell into the river.  
“Yes sir,” said Morse, sighing slightly to himself. The homeless people were never keen to talk to the police, but there was a very small chance that anyone else would have noticed the old man, either dead or alive. It was a miracle the body had been found so soon.  
Three hours later, Morse and Jakes were both ready to commit murder, preferably on each other. There did not seem to be a single homeless person anywhere in Oxford. It was half an hour later that Jakes finally remembered that he’d seen a notice up somewhere that there was a Christmas Eve dinner for anyone who wouldn’t otherwise have a decent meal that Christmas, being put on by a local church. Morse just sighed when Jakes told him, and headed back to the car.  
When they got back to the station, tired and cold, it was to discover that the entire venture had been completely pointless. DeBryn had discovered nearly an hour ago that he had died of natural causes, and the hand had been removed after death, and it looked like it had been chewed off, almost certainly a fox. This did not improve either of their tempers. Later, after the reports had been typed up and everyone was getting coats and scarves and leaving, Thursday walked over to where Morse was retrieving his scarf from where it had been hung, and said,  
“Do you have any plans for tomorrow? Because if not Win and I would like to have you round, say about 3 o’clock-ish? Bring your girlfriend to.”   
“Thank you,” said Morse, taken aback, “That’s very kind, but I wouldn’t want to intrude...”  
“Nonsense,” interrupted Thursday, “Win thinks of you as one of the family anyway.” And with that, he left.

 

 

Christmas Day

Morse reached to knock on the door of the Thursday’s house. It swung open before he had touched it, however, startling him and Monica. It transpired that Joan had been standing just behind the door, having seen them coming, and decided to lay in an ambush. She invited them in with a smile and a,  
“Merry Christmas!” They returned the greeting and stepped inside, shedding coats and scarves onto the hall stand. Win came out of the kitchen where she was preparing dinner and said,  
“Go into the living room dears, and get settled, dinner won’t be for another hour or so yet.”  
“Mmm,” said Monica, when they were seated in the living room, “Dinner smells nice,” Morse smiled at her, wondering, as he often did, what on earth he had done to deserve her. She smiled back at him, and stroked his hand. At that moment, Fred wandered in, accidently repeating Monica’s words,  
“Dinner smells good.” Sam snorted, from his position, stretched out on the floor, by the log fire burning in the grate. Fred looked at him, confused, but decided not to ask.  
Later, after dinner was done, it was time for the presents. Thankfully Morse had bought and wrapped all his presents a week ago, so it hadn’t been affected by the recent case of the dead man. From Win he received a lovely, hand-knitted scarf in blue, which she said would bring out his eyes. Fred gave him a record of an opera he had been wanting for months. He got them a bottle of perfume for Win and a new pipe for Fred, as his had been broken a few weeks earlier. For Monica he had got a necklace, and she got him a tie pin. It was the best Christmas he had ever had.  
Later that night, with Monica lying beside him on the new mattress he smiled to himself, and hoped that all his Christmases could be as happy.


End file.
